IOS Newbie needing the Pros help :)

New to IOS from Windows phone (And android from ages ago) and on the one hand I love this phone already. It's truly one of my favorite phones though except my experience and growing pains are not boding well.

I am used to phones with 8 GB and 16 gb and 32 GB with Windows and android. I never really worried about storage because of an SD card. SD card capabilities of course do not exist on iPhones but I thought I would be able to manage with 16 GB(as I have with other phones). Unfortunately, it is proving problematic.

1. Music-
(On my previous phones, I just utilized SD Card)

I use Groove music on Windows 10(desktop) and previous Windows phones. You can upload to onedrive which I have done happily so and it has worked mostly.
Problem is Groove on IOS sucks royally(No scrubbing and shuffle sucks). It's a mess.

I tried Google music but apparently it doesn't want to work right to allow me to upload music.

I am adjusting to iTunes on desktop. It sucks but it works. Problem is, I got Apple music Trial but I am confused.

I want to be able to upload to iCloud and stream music.
Do I need to pay for Apple Match for $25 a year?

Are there any other apps I can use that I can upload my music to them and stream it from the cloud?

2. Photos-
I like to keep certain photos of my loved ones locally as well as random Gifs/Memes.

Normally I could easily use the SD card but that is non-existent. Then I could use Onedrive and it'll be in my library yet not on the phone's storage.

I thought iCloud worked that way but apparently even if the photos is on iCloud, it'll still using my phone's storge.

Are there any workarounds or cloud solutions that allow you to be able to share media without needing to use the phone's storage to save the media?

3. Apps
Is there any particular reason why IOS apps seem to use so much space? Take tinder for example.....Apparently I have too many matches/messages(3K) and when I am logged in, my storage goes down by 2 GB. When I log out, it is fine.

So you mean to tell me that the app is taking up that much space due to the matches?

Is there any way to fix this without having to manually delete a bunch of messages?

16GB is always gonna be a problem if you use the phone for media, even more so if you use the camera. I would return if you able and get the 64GB, I'm sorry this is not a direct answer to your questions but the 16GB is always gonna be thorn in your side, Apple should not be releasing devices with storage that small yet they are greedy.

16GB is always gonna be a problem if you use the phone for media, even more so if you use the camera. I would return if you able and get the 64GB, I'm sorry this is not a direct answer to your questions but the 16GB is always gonna be thorn in your side, Apple should not be releasing devices with storage that small yet they are greedy.

New to IOS from Windows phone (And android from ages ago) and on the one hand I love this phone already. It's truly one of my favorite phones though except my experience and growing pains are not boding well.

I am used to phones with 8 GB and 16 gb and 32 GB with Windows and android. I never really worried about storage because of an SD card. SD card capabilities of course do not exist on iPhones but I thought I would be able to manage with 16 GB(as I have with other phones). Unfortunately, it is proving problematic.

1. Music-
(On my previous phones, I just utilized SD Card)

I use Groove music on Windows 10(desktop) and previous Windows phones. You can upload to onedrive which I have done happily so and it has worked mostly.
Problem is Groove on IOS sucks royally(No scrubbing and shuffle sucks). It's a mess.

I tried Google music but apparently it doesn't want to work right to allow me to upload music.

I am adjusting to iTunes on desktop. It sucks but it works. Problem is, I got Apple music Trial but I am confused.

I want to be able to upload to iCloud and stream music.
Do I need to pay for Apple Match for $25 a year?

Are there any other apps I can use that I can upload my music to them and stream it from the cloud?

2. Photos-
I like to keep certain photos of my loved ones locally as well as random Gifs/Memes.

Normally I could easily use the SD card but that is non-existent. Then I could use Onedrive and it'll be in my library yet not on the phone's storage.

I thought iCloud worked that way but apparently even if the photos is on iCloud, it'll still using my phone's storge.

Are there any workarounds or cloud solutions that allow you to be able to share media without needing to use the phone's storage to save the media?

3. Apps
Is there any particular reason why IOS apps seem to use so much space? Take tinder for example.....Apparently I have too many matches/messages(3K) and when I am logged in, my storage goes down by 2 GB. When I log out, it is fine.

So you mean to tell me that the app is taking up that much space due to the matches?

Is there any way to fix this without having to manually delete a bunch of messages?

Click to expand...

iTunes is pretty good once you get used to it.

As far as your photos iCloud is for backup and will replicate the photos across your Idevices. Maybe try Dropbox.

As far as tinder, I'm guessing messages are stored locally and accumulate. Is there a way to manage these messages from within tinder?

As far as Apple Music trial and iCloud maybe some one else will chime in.

I'd like to see 64, 128, 256. Come on Apple two extra bucks for 64 base instead of 32. Do the right thing! Oh wait, it's more than two bucks, as you figure so many will opt for spending extra $100 to go from 32 to 64.

Time to give back a little to all the hundreds of millions of iPhone users that have made you wealthy beyond your dreams. Apple stockholders, come on, push for this with Apple. Give 2 cents per share. It will pay dividends in customer loyalty, trust me.

I'd like to see 64, 128, 256. Come on Apple two extra bucks for 64 base instead of 32. Do the right thing! Oh wait, it's more than two bucks, as you figure so many will opt for spending extra $100 to go from 32 to 64.

Time to give back a little to all the hundreds of millions of iPhone users that have made you wealthy beyond your dreams. Apple stockholders, come on, push for this with Apple. Give 2 cents per share. It will pay dividends in customer loyalty, trust me.

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No it won't, trust me. People will find something else to grouse about like IOS.

For music you could do google music. It's virtually exactly like iTunes Match with the exception that you have to actually upload everything (match will scan files and omit uploads of songs that it marches). You're also limited to 10,000 songs with Google. Unsure how many you're limited to with ITunes Match. I know there is a limit to songs that aren't in their iTunes library but I just don't remember. Initially setup can be rather lengthy for both services depending on the number of tracks you have but it all works in the background; I just let it run in my PC for s few days. Google is free so I ultimately chose that once they removed iTunes Radio from the $25 a year deal.

For photos you can do Google, or drop box, or Flickr, or Microsoft cloud, or a handful of other services. It really just depends how much space you need. Apple even offers a paid option for this. I opted for Flickr along with manual backup. 1TB of free space is rather nice IMO. I'll add that I don't knownifbtherrnis currently a service outside of Apple that will store your full uncompressed 4K videos, should you be taking any of those.

As far as apps, in unsure I've ever been in a situation like you. I don't use tinder but I've also never seen an app jump in storage size whether logged in to a service or out. The only app I can think of that changes drastically is infuse, which is a media player app, and this only happens when I transfer movie files from my home theater PC to the app itself to watch when in away from home.

If you only want access to your own music then you can get the $25/year iTunes Match plan.
No need to pay the $10/month Apple Music fee unless you want access to the entire iTunes catalog.

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I don't need Apple music because idc about iTunes catalog really. However, how does iTunes Match work?
I have a lot of music I downloaded or ripped from CDs or brought elsewqhere. If it is stored locally on my computer will I be able to stream it on the iPhone even if it is not in the iTunes store?

I tried my apple music trial and many songs were ineligible to be uploaded and it only uploaded like half the songs to icloud.

Question though, can I easily send photos via MMS or email (like my epic collection of memes and gifs lol) without needing to download it to my handset first?

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No you don't have to download the photos. iOS is pretty intelligent. If you use iCloud then it automatically keeps the files you use frequently on the device and the rest on iCloud. If you access some picture on iCloud it will simply work as if you had it on your phone. Not sure about the GIFs though but it should be the same.

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Interesting though as 16 Gb worked perfectly fine for me on other OS and I am using it no more differently than I did when they did.

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Different OS work differently so expecting the same from every phone or device is unrealistic. You were mentioning the SD card business everywhere. Seeing you had a lot of your media files on the SD card how do you expect 16GB to suffice without the extra memory?

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I don't need Apple music because idc about iTunes catalog really. However, how does iTunes Match work?
I have a lot of music I downloaded or ripped from CDs or brought elsewqhere. If it is stored locally on my computer will I be able to stream it on the iPhone even if it is not in the iTunes store?

Click to expand...

You can't stream anything on your phone with or without it being on iTunes library if it's just locally stored. iTunes Match is your only option that will upload it to the cloud and you can then steam via the normal music player on the phone without having to download the physical file.

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I tried my apple music trial and many songs were ineligible to be uploaded and it only uploaded like half the songs to icloud.

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It seems you have some music files which are not in a format that iTunes supports. Generally all popular and modern music file formats are supported by iTunes but double check the file formats of those that didn't get uploaded. If they turn out to be not compatible then you need to convert them to a format that iTunes supports.

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Very strange to me as well. I don't even us tinder for its actual purpose so I don't mind logging out but I find it strange that I have such a storage discrepancy with it on.

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This is really down to the app developer. Nothing to do with the OS. So can't provide any solution. Out of curiosity I did checkout this app & it doesn't take 2GB. So either you're hyperactive on the app and share and receive a lot of pictures within their chat service or you've mistaken about the memory usage.

No you don't have to download the photos. iOS is pretty intelligent. If you use iCloud then it automatically keeps the files you use frequently on the device and the rest on iCloud. If you access some picture on iCloud it will simply work as if you had it on your phone. Not sure about the GIFs though but it should be the same.

Different OS work differently so expecting the same from every phone or device is unrealistic. You were mentioning the SD card business everywhere. Seeing you had a lot of your media files on the SD card how do you expect 16GB to suffice without the extra memory?

You can't stream anything on your phone with or without it being on iTunes library if it's just locally stored. iTunes Match is your only option that will upload it to the cloud and you can then steam via the normal music player on the phone without having to download the physical file.

It seems you have some music files which are not in a format that iTunes supports. Generally all popular and modern music file formats are supported by iTunes but double check the file formats of those that didn't get uploaded. If they turn out to be not compatible then you need to convert them to a format that iTunes supports.

This is really down to the app developer. Nothing to do with the OS. So can't provide any solution. Out of curiosity I did checkout this app & it doesn't take 2GB. So either you're hyperactive on the app and share and receive a lot of pictures within their chat service or you've mistaken about the memory usage.

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While I used an SD card I was also mainly using that for apps.

I still use the internal storage for my photos and music and videos. 16 go was fine for the most part.

As far as tinder, the screenshot tells what it is using for storage. I am active on the app but i never had any issue with other platforms using this app.

Either way, you still used other memory resources. But on iPhone you're sharing the same resources amongst apps and media files.

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I still use the internal storage for my photos and music and videos. 16 go was fine for the most part.

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As I mentioned earlier, no matter what, you still used other resources. So not really sharing the 16GB you were mentioning. Also, as mentioned in the previous post, different OS work differently and apps are developed differently so expecting the same behaviour is unrealistic.

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As far as tinder, the screenshot tells what it is using for storage. I am active on the app but i never had any issue with other platforms using this app.

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So yes, there you go. You said you didn't use the app for its purposes but you do in reality. Again, apps are developed differently for different platforms, so expecting similar behaviour is unrealistic.

Either way, you still used other memory resources. But on iPhone you're sharing the same resources amongst apps and media files.

As I mentioned earlier, no matter what, you still used other resources. So not really sharing the 16GB you were mentioning. Also, as mentioned in the previous post, different OS work differently and apps are developed differently so expecting the same behaviour is unrealistic.

So yes, there you go. You said you didn't use the app for its purposes but you do in reality. Again, apps are developed differently for different platforms, so expecting similar behaviour is unrealistic.

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I suppose I expected the os to work intelligently even without a Sd card. I've used devices with lower memory (8 gb) or with fixed memory and no Sd card and made it just fine. I don't necessarily want to get 64 Gb because I plan to simply trade this phone in come September for the new one and get a higher model then and it'll be that much faster to pay off half of the 16 gb than it is the 64 gb.

This is why I am asking about apps because even with my limited memory in Windows I also utilize cloud storage and was able to send files from it and I am looking for ways to do this on iOS as well as music streaming and unfortunately my options are limited it seems

I suppose I expected the os to work intelligently even without a Sd card. I've used devices with lower memory (8 gb) or with fixed memory and no Sd card and made it just fine. I don't necessarily want to get 64 Gb because I plan to simply trade this phone in come September for the new one and get a higher model then and it'll be that much faster to pay off half of the 16 gb than it is the 64 gb.

This is why I am asking about apps because even with my limited memory in Windows I also utilize cloud storage and was able to send files from it and I am looking for ways to do this on iOS as well as music streaming and unfortunately my options are limited it seems

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Didn't you get the options?! What limitation are you facing now? Think I've given you solution to everything you had issues with.

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